Comment by 3abiton
9 hours ago
Their strategy is growing markets, especially in india, and africa, and of course China. It's where the chinese oem dominate. Beside chinese OEM, i think the only other player is Samsung. So google strategy seems to be to circumvent people from misusing their OS by blocking certain services (mainly ads). This is done via apps from fdroid, and rooting and what not. If google can control how people uses their devices (block vpn based adblocking, or rooting all together), they have better grip on the market. At the end of the day, Android is front for an ad platform.
> [Google's] strategy is growing markets, especially in india, and africa, and of course China.
Really? China? Where Google services are banned and Android phones come with local OS versions that cut them out? "High-friction sideloading" won't affect anyone in China. It won't be part of their experience at all.
I think OP is suggesting that the ability to sideload is what is preventing their phones being distributed in China.
If you can present a "locked down" phone to regulators, you might be more likely to get permission to sell large volumes of them - like iPhones in China.
But there still won't be Google Services so what extra money is Google to make there? The markup on hardware. But they have to compete with local manufacturers with the very same OS. At least Apple is the only manufacturer selling phones with iOS.